When is deduplication recommended?

Deduplication is most recommended for workloads that generate large amounts of redundant data. Full clone Virtual Machines (VMs), particularly in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments, are a prime use case. Each full clone contains a complete, independent copy of the base operating system and applications, resulting in significant data duplication across the cluster. Nutanix deduplication can identify and eliminate these redundant data blocks at the storage layer, leading to substantial capacity savings.

A. Server workloads: This is too general. While some server workloads benefit, high-performance transactional workloads like databases are often poor candidates for deduplication due to potential performance impact.
B. Linked Clone VMs: Linked clones already achieve space efficiency by sharing a common base disk at the hypervisor level, which lessens the incremental benefit of storage-level deduplication.
D. Cold data: While post-process deduplication specifically targets cold data, the primary recommendation is based on the workload type that generates the data, not just the data's temperature.

1. Nutanix University, Nutanix Certified Associate (NCA) 6.5 Study Guide: In the "Data Efficiency" module, the guide specifies that deduplication provides the most benefit for VDI workloads, particularly those using full clones, due to the high degree of data redundancy.

2. Prism Web Console Guide (AOS 6.5), Section: Data Efficiency (Compression, Deduplication, and Erasure Coding): This guide states, "Deduplication is best suited for VDI workloads, specifically for full clones, and for persistent desktops where the data is largely the same across VMs."

3. Nutanix Tech Note, Data Efficiency (document ID TN-2032): Section "Deduplication" explains that the technology is most effective in environments with many copies of the same data, citing full clone VDI deployments as the canonical example. It contrasts this with linked clones, where much of the data is already shared.